Mellen's Legal Action Against McMaster and Its Librarian

You can see the actual allegations in the "notice of action" here. It is, as Professor Green noted, "threadbare." If they filed such an action in the United States, they would be lucky to escape only with sanctions imposed upon them by the court. I do not know enough about Canadian libel law to comment on how they will fare there, but I am told that Canada, while not as speech-protective as the U.S., is not as libel-friendly as Britain, and that the action will fail there as well. (Many libel judgments in Britain are not enforceable in the U.S., because of the free speech implications.) Because Mellen's aim is clearly to discourage critical comment about the press, I think it is imperative that other blogs call attention to this sordid affair. Whatever the merits of their scholarly catalogue, the press does itself no favors by responding to fair critical comment this way. Indeed, they would help heal their image if they promptly withdrew the lawsuit, and simply issued a press release explaining why they think the criticisms unfair.